Much Talk, No Substance
February 8th 2010 18:46
George Will, in his February 4 op-ed piece for The Washington Post, “A growth lesson from China,” criticizes President Obama for wanting to freeze some discretionary spending while submitting a $3.8 trillion budget to Congress that expands the national debt by $1.3 trillion.
His attacks come at the expense of the proposed high speed rail projects which are projected to cost $8 billion in the current budget (.21% of the current budget) and the $430 million budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which Republican/Conservatives consider to be too liberal, and therefore, is a favorite whipping boy (.011% of the proposed budget). Strangely, Mr. Will didn’t attack the proposed spending on the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, a military jet transport that the U.S. Air Force currently has 180 of, and that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Air Force contend is a number that will more than meet our defense needs for the foreseeable future. So, why then has Congress forced the President to budget for extending production of a plane that is not needed, for a total of 223, at a cost of up to $10 billion more (.263%)? One doesn’t have to argue very forcefully that the purchase of the planes that nobody needs or wants at a cost that is greater than the two programs which incurred the ire of Mr. Will is more sinful than the two programs which people do want.
In the second part of his essay, Mr. Will refers to Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Fogel, a former Communist during his student days who saw the error in his ways and became a Conservative (he stopped at a 150 degree turn around and refrained from becoming a Nazi). Dr. Fogel, writing for the online magazine the American, a publication for the Conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, warned of surging American health care spending because of extensions in American life expectancy and increases in the personal wealth of Americans, causing them to demand more expensive, life extending technologies (that’s strange; I thought he was criticizing President Obama for the massive debt being shouldered by Americans, causing them to grow poorer, not wealthier). Dr. Fogel claims that the cost of health care per capita at age 85 is six times as high at ages 50-54, and 75% higher per capita than at ages 75-79. He contends that five years before the year of death, annual health care costs per capita are the same as annual Medicare costs per capita, but two years prior to the year of death, the cost goes up by 60%, and in the death year, the annual cost per capita exceeds four times the average Medicare costs. Forty percent of all Medicare costs are incurred during a person’s last two years of life. Mr. Will argues that in 1900, the deaths of persons 65 and older were only 18 percent of all deaths, but today they account for 75 percent of all deaths. I don’t understand his argument: would he have it any other way? Would he prefer more people die in their youth to get back to the 18% level? Would he prefer that we sack all medical advances made since 1900 so Conservatives can relive the “Good old days?” Apparently he would, because he makes the threat that continuing to throw money at extending the lives of our senior population imperils our national defense and international standing by diverting money from those causes to health care. Would Mr. Will be willing to euthanize his parents when they became 65 so Medicare spending on their health care wouldn’t exceed some budget limitation? Maybe not his parents, just yours.
Then, Mr. Will quotes Dr. Fogel who predicts that China’s GDP will be $123 trillion, or 40% of the world’s GDP in 2040, while the GDP of the U.S. will be 14%. What’s the reason that Dr. Fogel and Mr. Will give for this astounding increase in GDP? China is investing in the education of its youth while America is investing in the health of its elderly. So, the heart of Mr. Will’s thesis, that while President Obama is wasting money on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, high speed rail, and the health of your parents, China is spending it productively on its youth.
China’s GDP was approximately $4 trillion in 2009. China’s GDP will have to grow at a rate of 11.69% per year, every year, to reach a GDP of $123 trillion. It has been slowed due to the current world wide recession, and it will undoubtedly slow again due to other recessions and factors. What Dr. Fogel doesn’t mention is that China’s population has the chance to double by 2040. What good is a high GDP if it is produced by billions of low wage workers? And, if China really could account for 40% of the world’s GDP, who would be able to buy its exports? Dr. Fogel has a history of exaggerating numbers to suit his hypothesis. His famous book, Time on the Cross, argued that southern slavery was an efficient and relatively humane form of agriculture because plantation owners organized their plantations for efficiency and to maximize profits, and they would rarely brutalize a slave who would produce profits for them. So, why did they try to escape the plantations and head north every chance they got?
I find it strange that Conservatives dig up Conservative ideas from Conservative think tanks to provide them with the facts to support their theses. Their arguments would be convincing if they used facts provided by Liberals; then moderates like me could only read their arguments and admire their intellect. Liberals are no better; they are just at the other end of the political spectrum.
His attacks come at the expense of the proposed high speed rail projects which are projected to cost $8 billion in the current budget (.21% of the current budget) and the $430 million budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which Republican/Conservatives consider to be too liberal, and therefore, is a favorite whipping boy (.011% of the proposed budget). Strangely, Mr. Will didn’t attack the proposed spending on the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, a military jet transport that the U.S. Air Force currently has 180 of, and that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Air Force contend is a number that will more than meet our defense needs for the foreseeable future. So, why then has Congress forced the President to budget for extending production of a plane that is not needed, for a total of 223, at a cost of up to $10 billion more (.263%)? One doesn’t have to argue very forcefully that the purchase of the planes that nobody needs or wants at a cost that is greater than the two programs which incurred the ire of Mr. Will is more sinful than the two programs which people do want.
In the second part of his essay, Mr. Will refers to Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Fogel, a former Communist during his student days who saw the error in his ways and became a Conservative (he stopped at a 150 degree turn around and refrained from becoming a Nazi). Dr. Fogel, writing for the online magazine the American, a publication for the Conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, warned of surging American health care spending because of extensions in American life expectancy and increases in the personal wealth of Americans, causing them to demand more expensive, life extending technologies (that’s strange; I thought he was criticizing President Obama for the massive debt being shouldered by Americans, causing them to grow poorer, not wealthier). Dr. Fogel claims that the cost of health care per capita at age 85 is six times as high at ages 50-54, and 75% higher per capita than at ages 75-79. He contends that five years before the year of death, annual health care costs per capita are the same as annual Medicare costs per capita, but two years prior to the year of death, the cost goes up by 60%, and in the death year, the annual cost per capita exceeds four times the average Medicare costs. Forty percent of all Medicare costs are incurred during a person’s last two years of life. Mr. Will argues that in 1900, the deaths of persons 65 and older were only 18 percent of all deaths, but today they account for 75 percent of all deaths. I don’t understand his argument: would he have it any other way? Would he prefer more people die in their youth to get back to the 18% level? Would he prefer that we sack all medical advances made since 1900 so Conservatives can relive the “Good old days?” Apparently he would, because he makes the threat that continuing to throw money at extending the lives of our senior population imperils our national defense and international standing by diverting money from those causes to health care. Would Mr. Will be willing to euthanize his parents when they became 65 so Medicare spending on their health care wouldn’t exceed some budget limitation? Maybe not his parents, just yours.
Then, Mr. Will quotes Dr. Fogel who predicts that China’s GDP will be $123 trillion, or 40% of the world’s GDP in 2040, while the GDP of the U.S. will be 14%. What’s the reason that Dr. Fogel and Mr. Will give for this astounding increase in GDP? China is investing in the education of its youth while America is investing in the health of its elderly. So, the heart of Mr. Will’s thesis, that while President Obama is wasting money on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, high speed rail, and the health of your parents, China is spending it productively on its youth.
China’s GDP was approximately $4 trillion in 2009. China’s GDP will have to grow at a rate of 11.69% per year, every year, to reach a GDP of $123 trillion. It has been slowed due to the current world wide recession, and it will undoubtedly slow again due to other recessions and factors. What Dr. Fogel doesn’t mention is that China’s population has the chance to double by 2040. What good is a high GDP if it is produced by billions of low wage workers? And, if China really could account for 40% of the world’s GDP, who would be able to buy its exports? Dr. Fogel has a history of exaggerating numbers to suit his hypothesis. His famous book, Time on the Cross, argued that southern slavery was an efficient and relatively humane form of agriculture because plantation owners organized their plantations for efficiency and to maximize profits, and they would rarely brutalize a slave who would produce profits for them. So, why did they try to escape the plantations and head north every chance they got?
I find it strange that Conservatives dig up Conservative ideas from Conservative think tanks to provide them with the facts to support their theses. Their arguments would be convincing if they used facts provided by Liberals; then moderates like me could only read their arguments and admire their intellect. Liberals are no better; they are just at the other end of the political spectrum.
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